


to become a threat

by alamorn



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Cuddling, F/M, Gen, NaNoWriMo, Past Abuse, Pre-Relationship, Trapped in a Small Space, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8456137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Tight spaces and conversation neither of them is fully comfortable with. Just another day on the Skwad.





	

The collapse of the bank took everyone by surprise. Embarrassingly, Harley would have gotten smashed flat by a falling chunk of roof if Floyd hadn’t tackled her out of the way. They were at the head of the group, like normal, and now they’re separated by a few feet of piled rubble. There’s a chance that the others got squashed — like Harley nearly did — but she’s not thinking about it.

It’s possible Flag has explosives — other than the ones in their necks — but not likely. It’s possible that Waylon will be able to lift the building’s worth of concrete and steel around them. It’s possible Chato could melt through it. It’s possible.

It’s also possible that they’re all dead, so Harley’s not going to count on it.

Counting only on themselves, they’re probably fucked, if Harley’s honest.

Once Floyd had tackled her away from the first chunk, they’d dragged themselves into the swung wide door of the vault and sheltered there as the building shuddered and shook and dust filled the air. Floyd had pulled his mask on and Harley had yanked her shirt up over her mouth, but they were both still coughing long after the shaking stopped.

Three floors had come down on their heads like a sledgehammer. Harley felt some small sympathy for the people she’s said _goodnight_ to, but that was quickly dismissed.

Now, they’re staring at the new walls on either side of the vault door by the tiny light of Floyd’s tiny flashlight.

Harley sucks on her lip. “Well. That’s a downer.”

Floyd grunts.

“Get it?” She elbows him. “A downer. The roof —“

“I got it,” he says.

“You didn’t laugh,” she complains, but she’s not laughing either, looking uneasily at the total darkness around them. The flashlight almost makes it darker. Then Floyd clicks the light off, and no. The flashlight did not make it darker.

“Hey, turn the light on.”

“Gotta save the battery. I’ll turn it on when we figure out what we’re doing.”

“Digging out, duh,” she says with a blasé she doesn’t feel.

“Yeah? Where are we putting the stuff we move?” He jostles her pointedly. “We don’t exactly have a ton of space.”

It’s true. The vault door is about four feet wide and two deep, previously shiny and impressive looking. It hadn’t kept out the thieves they were tracking, but not much had.

Debris has spilled in around the edges on both sides. Apparently the bank had spent more on the door of the vault than on the vault itself, which figures. Most people think more about strong doors than strong walls. It’s a failure Harley’s taken advantage of a lot, when she’s in the mood for some light robbery.

Well, if they’re not going to dig their way out, there’s not much they can do. Neither of them are metahumans, after all. And she doesn’t even have her bat — dropped it when he tackled her, which is embarrassing. Much as she likes her gun, shooting concrete is a good way to waste bullets.

She heaves a dramatic sigh and leans her head against his shoulder. “Do you think we’ll suffocate or dehydrate first?”

That startles a laugh out of him, which seems to kick up the dust again. They both have to cough before he can answer. “Harley,” he says, fingers fumbling across her face to prod her in the forehead. “You’re a true ray of sunshine. And suffocate.”

She pushes his hand away and retreats to the other side of the vault door, kicks the ground to check for debris. Then she puts her back to the doorframe and slides down to sit on the floor. “Excuse you, I _am_ a ray of sunshine. Can’t you see my glow?” Despite the darkness, she tries to make a gesture to display herself. She scrapes her knuckles on the concrete and hisses, pulls her hands into her lap. “I bet there’s some air coming in. It can’t be packed solid. I bet dehydration’s what’ll get us.”

“Yeah?” She can hear him shuffling around to sit too. Then she feels his boots and legs knock into hers. They move a little around each other so they can each have their legs extended without hurting each other. When they get settled, he continues. “You want to put money on it?”

Delighted, she knocks her foot into his thigh. “You’ve got money socked away in Belle Reve? Who’s dick did you suck for that, you tricky bastard?”

His hand finds her ankle and holds her foot still. “Don’t disrespect my mama like that.” His tone is light, though. Friendly. “And my own, actually. Most people don’t think it’s possible. I make the guards pay to watch.”

She cackles. His delivery is perfect, matter of fact and earnest. She can almost hear the smile in it when he continues, “It takes a lot of limbering up, you know, so I can convince them to give me some yard time earlier in the day. Calisthenics, you know.”

“Forget the bet, I’ll just _give_ you whatever you want if I can see you doing calisthenics. Do you wear leg warmers?” She’s being good and keeping her hands to herself. They’re pressed to the cold, gritty floor.

“Oh, of course,” Floyd says. Floyd’s _not_ keeping his hands to himself. His thumb is tracing circles on the skin over her boot. “It’s important to maintain the right temperature at all times.” That seems to break him. He has to huff out a laugh. “Aren’t these uncomfortable?”

“What?” Robbed of her sight, she’s exquisitely aware of his skin on hers.

“Your shoes.” He shakes her foot gently, as if to remind her. As if she could forget a body part he’s touching so tenderly, as if she’s something precious and breakable.

Well. She _is_ breakable. “Oh, that,” she says, instead of anything she’s thinking. “Well. Yes.”

“Then why wear them? They don’t help you in a fight.” He sounds very practical, very serious, and her stomach sinks and twists.

She drags her legs up out of his grip so she can bury her face in her knees. Without his legs pressed against them, she’s suddenly very cold. She hugs her legs and sways back and forth as she mumbles into her knees, “J liked ‘em.”

Floyd wasn’t moving much before, that she could hear or feel, but somehow he manages to turn mere lack of movement into active stillness. “Why not change them now?”

Now that J is dead. Now that the scar where he carved his name into her back is starting to fade. There’s a wealth of information, of situation, contracted into that one word.

“Haven’t had much chance to go shopping,” she says as flippantly as she can. “You know how the Wall feels about non-essentials.”

He waits a moment, as if to let her try again. When she doesn’t, he just says, “Yeah, I know how the Wall feels about non-essentials.”

 

It’s cold, in this doorway. Their breath has made the air moist but not warm, and Harley could be imagining it, could be having a panic attack, but it seems harder to breathe than it did at the start. Or harder to be satisfied with a breath. But Floyd’s not gasping, so maybe it’s just her.

Then he talks, and no. It’s not just her. His voice is just a little thready. “You’re shivering. I can hear your teeth.”

“I’m fine. ‘M fine.”

He manages to sound even more uncomfortable than she feels. “You could…come over here. Zoe always tells me I’m like a furnace.”

She licks her lips. She _is_ cold, colder than she should be. It could be shock. Once she thinks it, it seems obvious. Of course she’s in shock. She didn’t think she could get shocky anymore, but a slowly impending death seems to be enough to trigger it.

“Okay,” she says and nods and crawls forward on her hands and knees the few feet they were separated. In the black, she misjudges their relative positions and jams her fingers against his boots, and then clips his upper thigh in a way that makes him suck in a breath. But once she bumps her head into his chest, there’s only a bit of awkward shuffling before they settle with her leaning back against his chest, his legs bracketing hers. He doesn’t put his arms around her. That would be too much.

He wasn’t lying about the amount of heat he puts off. Or maybe it’s just that it’s comforting, to be pressed up against another person, to know that if she dies, it won’t be alone.

Either way, the shivering slows and stops.

“How long have we been here?” she asks.

She can feel him shrug. “A while.”

“How much air do you think we have left?”

He sighs. “Not a ton.”

“There’s worse ways to die,” she tells him. “We should know. We’ve caused them for a lot of other people.”

He sighs again and she can feel the movement in his chest, hear the thunk as he gently bangs his head against the doorframe. “You wanna talk about this? Really?”

“What else?” she asks. It’s a genuine question. If he can think of something else, she’s willing to try it out.

There’s a long moment, and then he makes a frustrated noise. “I always thought I’d get taken out by another hitman. Nice and quick, if not painless.”

“I…I always thought J would be the one to kill me. I never thought about a particular way, I just. Thought he’d be the one to do it.”

“Jesus, Harley,” he says. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him again.”

“I didn’t…I didn’t hate the idea.”

“Of course you didn’t.” He sounds disgusted. Harley wants to withdraw, but her body feels heavy and hard to move. “He had you so twisted up you couldn’t see how badly he treated you. Can you even see it now?”

Harley winces away from his tone. “I think I’d rather we ran out of the last of our air now, than talk about this.”

“Tch, fine.” He subsides. “The air might last longer if we try to sleep. We’ll be breathing slower. Give the others more of a chance to find us.”

“You can just admit you’re falling in love with my voice. It’s okay.” She finds his thigh in the dark and pats it.

He snorts. “Take a nap, Quinn.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Despite the attitude, she does try. She leans her head back into his shoulder and matches her breathing to his.

She doesn’t quite sleep, but enters a strange, meditative place.

 

The next thing she knows, there’s a crash and a rush of air and light. She blinks up, feels Floyd start to move behind her.

Waylon grins through a cleared hole at them, says, “Morning.”

“You found them?” she hears. Flag.

Waylon moves out of the hole and Flag’s face appears instead. He looks genuinely relieved to see them both alive. It’s almost sweet. Then he says, “Wakey, wakey, lovebirds. Time to go.”

Well, he had a good, long life, Harley reasons. Or a full life anyway. Achieved a lot of things. Really, murdering him will be doing him a favor, because it’s all going to be downhill from here for him.

She’s such a good person, really.

Floyd must read some of her thoughts on her face, because he laughs in her ear and helps her to her feet with his hands on her waist. “I’ll help,” he whispers, and then it’s all noise and commotion as they widen the hole enough to slip through.

**Author's Note:**

> For NaNo, I'm just trying to write 50000 words in general, not on a single project, so feel free to come over to my [tumblr](http://www.alamorn.tumblr.com) and send me a prompt! 
> 
> Right now I'm interested in Suicide Squad, Luther, From Dusk Till Dawn, Dredd, and Dragon Age, but if you've seen me write it or blog about it before, it's fair game.


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